In recent years, there has been a steady evolution in the techniques utilized in book binding. This has taken place in connection with many aspects of the book binding process in diverse areas from, for example, personalizing text within books to incorporating inserts into books during a machine book binding operation. Unfortunately, there have been difficulties encountered in binding inserts with automated equipment.
In particular, there have been various different attempts to bind inserts into books using automated equipment. There are added difficulties, however, when such inserts enclose or carry a product and, in particular, where they are utilized to carry a compact disc that is to be marketed with the book. More specifically, the only known manner of binding a compact disc into a book has involved considerable manual labor.
As will be appreciated, the manual labor has resulted in considerable cost that is detrimental in connection with marketing a compact disc with a book. It has simply not heretofore been possible to provide an insert or "carrier" for a compact disc which is compatible with existing binding equipment to run at maximum speed in a manner eliminating the possibility of crooked binding that might otherwise result in damage to the compact disc or machinery as well as an unacceptable appearance to the finished product. Accordingly, it has remained to provide a technique for binding a product into a book that eliminates the added expense of hand insertion.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the foregoing problems and achieving one or more of the resulting objects.